Ideas and Ideals

The authors present initial results of a study dealing with the scenario forecasting of the Russian economy development in its uncertainty and ambiguity. The Russia's future now looks very "nebulous" because of the large number of less predictable foreign economic and political risks. But the main factor of uncertainty, which can be characterized as the fundamental, i.e., excluding the possibility of a correct conversion to the risk situation, springs from the well-established resource dependence of the Russian economy over the past half-century. The peculiarity of the study is related to the application of expert-statistical Bayesian method based on non-formalized source of information by the method of peer reviews. The direct object of the study is to evaluate the probability of the basic scenario of the Russian economy in the long term and in a broader sense it solves a problem of identifying the conditions, which will be required for the realization of favorable scenarios and will be able to prevent adverse ones. According to the results of the two phases of the study conducted in 2014 and 2015, most experts appreciate the likelihood of further development of the country on the way of creating a "resource superpower" with the risk of finding itself on the "periphery of the world", because there is the slightest difference between the two scenarios. Trying to build a “resource superpower” without precisely formulated transparent terms and conditions, we may not cope with the threats and challenges and become a raw material appendage of the "world-economy".

The paper is concerned with the issues of economic policy improvement of Russia, vulnerable to adverse effects associated with its high raw export orientation. Main features of «Dutch Disease» for the Russian economy are identified. It demonstrates the spiral nature of the "Dutch disease" in the Russian economy and the threat of its transition to the active open form. Particular attention is paid to assessing the impact of decreasing of world oil prices with sharp tightening of financial conditions under the influence of the sanctions in 2014 for the Russian economy. It also identifies the main obstacles to the remission of the "Dutch disease" in the Russian economy in the conditions of falling oil prices of 2008-2009 and 2014-2016 years. Analysis of the system limitations of socio-economic development and threat for reindustrialization posed by introduced against Russia sectoral sanctions is another point of this study. The necessity of active structural policy in the Russian economy, accompanied by an enabling sectoral credit policy of the Central Bank of Russia, is shown. Recommendations for the Russian economic policy allowing to accelerate structural modernization of the Russian economy under the circumstances are also given in the study.